Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Early life  





2 Performance career  



2.1  Late 1950s1960s  





2.2  1970s1980s  







3 Death  





4 Awards and legacy  





5 References  





6 External links  














Bil Baird






Español
Français
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Bil Baird
Baird and Charlemane, 1963
Born(1904-08-15)August 15, 1904
DiedMarch 18, 1987(1987-03-18) (aged 82)
OccupationPuppeteer
Years active1928–1987
Spouses
  • Evelyn Schwartz

(m. 1932; div. 1936)
  • Cora Eisenberg

    (m. 1937; died 1967)
  • (m. 1974)
  • Children2, including Peter

    William Britton "Bil" Baird (August 15, 1904[1] – March 18, 1987) was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century. He and his puppets performed for millions of adults and children. One of his better known creations was Charlemane the lion. He and his wife Cora Eisenberg Baird (1912–1967) produced and performed the famous puppetry sequence for "The Lonely Goatherd" in the film version of The Sound of Music.[2] His son Peter Baird was also a puppeteer, and he continued his family's legacy until his own death in July 2004.[3]

    He wrote The Art of the Puppet (1965) and provided the puppets for Dark Shadows. Baird also created the expandable nose Peter Noone wore as Pinocchiointhe 1968 musical adaptation of the Carlo Collodi story that aired on NBC as a Hallmark Hall of Fame special.

    Early life[edit]

    Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, Baird grew up in Mason City, Iowa. He traced his love of puppets to the moment when his father made him a simple string puppet when he was eight. In 1921, he attended a local performance of the Tony Sarg production of Rip Van Winkle, which cemented his interest. By the time he was 14, Baird was creating his own puppets and giving performances in the attic of his parents' home. In 1928, he helped Tony Sarg create the giant balloons for Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.[4]

    Performance career[edit]

    A graduate of the University of Iowa and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, he began work with childhood idol Tony Sarg in New York City in 1928. Several years later Baird formed his own company, the Baird Marionettes, which performed initially at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933.

    In 1950, Baird and Producer Yul Brynner created a show based on his character Snarky Parker called Life With Snarky Parker, which was a satire of American Westerns.[5] The show featured numerous characters who were previously created by Baird, including "Snarky Parker", the lion "Charlemane", "Flannel Mouse", "Slugger Ryan", a piano-playing rod puppet, along with new characters "Fluffy" and "Nolan", the Villain "Ronald Rodent", the slightly befuddled "Birdie", the seductive "Cuda Bara", the schoolteacher and Snarky's love interest "Butterbelle", and her father "Paw".[citation needed] In 1951, Baird's Marionettes performed some of the roles in the Broadway musical Flahooley, a fantasy about a mass-produced laughing doll who unintentionally threatens the American industrial system. Then, in 1956, Baird's puppets "Gargle" and "Snarky" appeared in Adventures in Numbers and Space, a nine-part series by Westinghouse Broadcasting designed to interest children in mathematics.[6]

    Late 1950s—1960s[edit]

    From 1958 to 1963, Baird's puppets often appeared on an educational show known as Parlons Français (Let's Talk French), which taught young children how to speak French. For this show, Baird created three new hand puppets named "Patapouf", "Lady Graybangs" and "Cliquot", who provided lessons to children while accompanied by Anne Slack, the hostess of the program.[7]

    The text of his The Magic Onion play for puppets was first published in Woman's Day in 1961.[8] It is performed still, and features "a beautiful princess and her faithful dog, a wicked magician and his magic onion, a handsome prince, a hungry dragon, and a castle in an enchanted blue forest."[9]

    In 1959, Baird helped create Schultz & Dooley, who appeared in advertisements for Utica Club Beer from 1959–1964.[10]

    They toured Russia, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Turkey, appeared in "The Lonely Goatherd" sequence in the film The Sound of Music (1965),[11] as well as in the ABC-TV 1958 television special Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf and Art Carney Meets the Sorcerer's Apprentice,[12] graced many World's Fairs, created commercials for Remington Razors,[13] Wildroot Cream-Oil, Wheaties cereal,[14] Borden Dairy, United Cerebral Palsy, and Young & Rubicam and were part of five Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades. During the 1964/65 World's Fair in New York City, Baird's Marionettes hosted "The Show-Go-Round", an elaborate musical exhibit in the Chrysler Pavilion.

    Opening in 1967, the Bil Baird Marionette Theater at 59 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village presented plays for more than a decade. Among them, Ali Baba, The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter and the Wolf, Davy Jones' Locker, A Pageant of Puppet Variety, Holiday on Strings, People is the Thing That the World is Fullest Of, Bil Baird's Band-Wagon, The Dragon and The Dentist, L'Histoire du Soldat, and The Whistling Wizard and the Sultan of Tuffet.[citation needed]

    1970s—1980s[edit]

    In 1972, Baird created an educational short film called Cartonella which told about the importance of milk, the short was a typical 'Damsel in Distress' story which featured the eponymously named "Cartonella", who was a fortune telling cow. This character would later become one of Baird's most popular characters, even having her own float during the 1974/75 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades.[15]

    In 1974, Baird married actress Josie Lloyd, 36 years his junior, and they remained together until his death in 1987.[16]

    In 1977, Baird temporarily closed down the theater so he could create another show at Busch Gardens: The Old Country titled Once Upon a Dragon, which replaced the Sid and Marty Krofft show The Camelot Revue and was regularly performed at the Reynold's Aluminum Puppet Theater in the Hastings, England section of the park from 1977 to 1978. That show was notable for starting the careers of several other prominent puppeteers. Those performance artists included Martin P. Robinson, who later portrayed "Telly Monster" and "Mr. Snuffleupagus" on Sesame Street;[17] Randy Carfagno, who later created the costumes of the Racing Presidents for the Major League Baseball Team, The Washington Nationals;[18] Jonathan Freeman, who voiced the villain "Jafar" in Disney's 1992 animated feature film Aladdin; and Craig Marin, who after marrying another Baird puppeteer named Olga Felgemacher, formed the company Flexitoon.[19]

    After Once Upon a Dragon ended, Baird continued his puppetry work and helped create several characters for commercials such as the "Flavor Fiend" for Bubble Yum,[20] a family of puppets for an ad for the now-defunct Greenwich Savings Bank,[21] a family of dogs and a Goldilocks character for Hartz Flea Tags, a Maid for Drano, Stop-Motion animated Bottles for Desitin Skin Care Lotion[22] and a puppet version of the mascot of RSO Records. Baird and his puppets would soon appear in another special for HBO called "I've Got The World on a String: The First Annual All-Star Puppet Spectacular", which featured famous singers like Rita Moreno & Ben Vereen.[23]

    In 1983, Baird performed a puppet version of Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat, which was his last performance before retiring due to severe arthritis.[24]

    In 1985, Baird made a brief return in which he performed one of his own plays called "The Dragon and The Dentist".[25]

    Death[edit]

    On March 18, 1987, Baird died at his home in Manhattan at the age of 82 from pneumonia and cancer.[26] Six months after his death, on September 19–20, Baird's children Laura and Peter sold nearly all of the remaining Bil Baird Marionettes at auction. The 800-lot sale was held in New York City at The Greenwich Auction Room located at 110 East 13th Street. Bonnie Bien invited a class of young students to a puppet show during the exhibition. Peter Baird and others from the Bil Baird Troupe entertained the children. Bonnie as the gallery public relations expert worked all summer until Rita Rieff who wrote the New York Times Auction picked up Bonnie's press release for print. Marionettes depicting Elsie the Cow and her family were sold to a New York collector. A group of Rockette figures and caricature puppets of U.S. presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman were purchased by a Pennsylvania toy dealer. Another character, "Olly Oilcan" from the 1939 New York World's Fair, sold for $11,000 (equivalent to $30,000 in 2023).[citation needed]

    Awards and legacy[edit]

    Baird received many awards and honors during his career, including the Medal of Achievement awarded by the Lotos Club of New York and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Iowa. He was also honored in 1980 by the Union International de la Marionette and Puppeteers of America at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.[citation needed]

    In December 1988 Bil Baird's Marionettes played at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York. The play Pinocchio, from the book by Jerome Coopersmith, was produced by Arthur Cantor, and performed by puppeteers Peter B. Baird, Pady Blackwood, Randy Carfagno, Larry Engler, William Tost and Richard Stephen Weber. Mary Rodgers was the composer; Sheldon Harnick wrote the lyrics. (Playbill Vol.88 No.12).[citation needed]

    References[edit]

    1. ^ Brown, Rick (October 13, 2016). "Sixty years of pulling strings: G.I. native's puppets on display at MONA". Kearney Hub. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  • ^ Rothman, Joshua (August 23, 2014). "Live From the Moon". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  • ^ "Peter Baird, 52, Who Carried On His Family's Marionette Legacy". The New York Times. July 21, 2004. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  • ^ Tony Sarg
  • ^ Woolery, George W. (1985). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946–1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series. The Scarecrow Press. pp. 295–296. ISBN 0-8108-1651-2.
  • ^ Woolery, George W. (1985). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946–1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series. The Scarecrow Press. p. 13. ISBN 0-8108-1651-2.
  • ^ "Parlons Francais". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "World of Puppetry Exhibit 2017". issuu.com. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  • ^ "The Puppet Place". thepuppetplace.com. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  • ^ "schultz & dooley". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ Pieper, Mary (January 31, 2015). "Baird puppets get better storage". Mason City Globe Gazette. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  • ^ "Art Carney Meets the Sorcerer's Apprentice". imdb.com. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  • ^ "James Coburn and the Bil Baird puppets in Remington commercial". YouTube. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  • ^ "Wheaties Commercial w Champy The Lion Bomb 1950s". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  • ^ "Bil Baird's Cartonella". puppetparts.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "The Des Moines Register 03 Apr 1977, page Page 191". Newspapers.com.
  • ^ "Mentors". martinprobinson.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "Randy Carfagno Productions". randycarfagnoproductions.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "Flexitoon.com". flexitoon.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "commercial – Bubble Yum "Flavor Fiend"". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "Greenwich Savings Bank, N.Y. Television Commercial : Hand Puppets from Bil Baird's World of Puppets". macniderart.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "commercial – Desitin Hand Lotion". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  • ^ "I've Got the World on a String". historyforsale.com. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "BIL BAIRD AND HIS MARIONETTES ARE BUSY WITH STRAVINSKY NOW". The New York Times. June 26, 1983. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • ^ "22 May 1985, 42 - Globe-Gazette at Newspapers.com".
  • ^ Robertson, Nan (March 20, 1987). "BIL BAIRD, CREATOR OF PUPPETS, IS DEAD". The New York Times. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  • External links[edit]


    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bil_Baird&oldid=1231332426"

    Categories: 
    1904 births
    1987 deaths
    Deaths from multiple myeloma in the United States
    American puppeteers
    Entertainers from Nebraska
    People from Mason City, Iowa
    People from Grand Island, Nebraska
    Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description is different from Wikidata
    Use mdy dates from September 2011
    Articles with hCards
    All articles with unsourced statements
    Articles with unsourced statements from May 2023
    Articles with unsourced statements from January 2024
    Articles with unsourced statements from November 2023
    Articles with FAST identifiers
    Articles with ISNI identifiers
    Articles with VIAF identifiers
    Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
    Articles with BNE identifiers
    Articles with BNF identifiers
    Articles with BNFdata identifiers
    Articles with GND identifiers
    Articles with J9U identifiers
    Articles with LCCN identifiers
    Articles with NKC identifiers
    Articles with NTA identifiers
    Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
    Articles with SUDOC identifiers
     



    This page was last edited on 27 June 2024, at 19:36 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki